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First Encounter Decor Is anticipation greater than realization? –It depends on the person and the buildup. Optimists And Pessimists Have Different Expectations. High Self Esteem and Low Self Esteem People Have Different Expectations Prior Negative Experiences And Prior Positive Experiences Shape Expectations. A Whole Hearted Great Buildup And A Hesitant Or Uncertain Buildup Will Create Different Expectations –Practice having Neutral expectations –Let the person and experience speak for themselves. Big differences between what was anticipated and what was encountered are registered on faces and in voices. –These reactions strongly affect first impressions and set the tone for the whole encounter. –The real person in less blighted circumstances might be very warmly received. –Reset the stage by diplomatically describing what you were led to expect and declaring you would prefer the person speak for themselves. Entering with an open mind. –Everyone wants to reduce uncertainty. –The trick is to learn to live with it rather than imposing your own brand of projections before you meet or get to know the other person. –Set the stage by suggesting you both start off by being honest with each other.

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Strategies For Winning The Girl/boy Of Your Dreams Or ‘The Art Of Tactical Warfare’ Showering With Gifts, Doting and Indulging Proving Devotion or Obsession, Showing Jealousy Making Promises, Proposing an Extraordinary Future Being Everything the Other Wants You to Be Marketing One’s Image or Desirability, Status, Power, Wealth, Reputation, Beauty, Sexiness [Whether Claims Are Real or Fake] Convincing the Other That You Are a Valuable Commodity, Have Something of Value, That You Are a Good ‘Buy’ Demonstrating That One Is Desperately Sought After by Many Would Be Lovers. Using Friends to Generate Interest in Oneself Baiting, Getting the Other Interested, Then Playing Hard to Get Playing Easy to Get Soliciting and Using the Approval of Friends and Relatives As a Pressuring Device Getting Public Recognition As an Item Before the Other Is Ready for It Pretending to Be Disinterested Pretending to Be Interested in Someone Else. Becoming a Victim to Get Oneself Rescued Rescuing Taunting, Ridiculing, Putting Down Badgering, Using Threats, Veiled or Overt, to Coerce the Other Into at Least Acting Like There Is a Relationship Sabotaging or Discrediting a Rival Using Sexual Seduction to Either Get the Other Hooked or Make Them Feel They Acquiesced and Now Has Closed Off Options, As Though They Were Branded Using Pity, Pretending to Be Hopelessly Heartbroken, Even Suicidal So Sympathy or Guilt Will Make the Other Fall in Love With You Using Pity Soliciting Sympathy by Demonstrating That No One Wants You and You Are Doomed to a Loveless Life TACTICS IN THE COURTING GAME I’M ALL YOURS AND YOUR ALL MINE. BASIC POSTURES IN PRE AND EARLY COURTSHIP LET’S BE WARM AND AFFECTIONATE, BUT NOT TOO HEAVY OR COMPLICATED. I’M ANXIOUS AND SHY. YOU TAKE THE INITIATIVE, BUT SLOWLY. I MAY OR MAY N0T RESPOND I’M JUST LOOKING AND DON’T WANT YOU TO THINK I AM REALLY INTERESTED JUST YET. WHOA! KEEP YOUR DISTANCE. LET’S BE FRIENDS, GET TO KNOW ONE ANOTHER, AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS. CAREFUL NOW. I WANT TO KNOW IF YOU CAN RESPECT MY BOUNDARIES. I’M NOT TO BE MANIPULATED OR POSSESSED. HEY, YOU LOOK SEXY. LET’S DO IT! YOU REVEAL YOURSELF. I WANT TO GET TO KNOW YOU AND EVALUATE YOU CAREFULLY FIRST.

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THE INFATUATION PRINCIPLE On the other hand, some people have a very strong image of their ‘dream mate’. This image often comes from a parent of the opposite sex whom they adored or a first love with whom they had a very intense experience, or both. They are constantly on the look out for someone with those characteristics. It could be something physical like hair color, eyes, or body type or something more psychological like a dominant or submissive personality. At any rate, there are some few characteristics that elicit high arousal. When they are smitten, they see only what they want to see, that this person is their ideal and has no faults or contrary traits. They fall head over heals in love. The attachment is very persistent, but since the other is highly unlikely to fit the image, they inevitably become disillusioned. In the beginning of a romantic relationship, people generally tend to put their best foot forward. They want to seem like they are very similar. They want to be so wonderful that the object of their desire can not help but fall helplessly in love with them. So, they make themselves look as good as possible and make themselves into what the other seems to like and want. Since this principle is true for both genders, substitute gender images in your mind to imagine from the other perspective.

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THE PROJECTION PRINCIPLE: LOVE IS BLIND When romance is involved, people almost never know what it is that they are looking for or doing. To the trained outsider it is painfully obvious what is or was going on. The smitten person is re enacting from some highly significant relationship in their past. They need to play out a certain type of role and have the other play out the complementary role. Unfortunately this is unconscious and of course, never stated up front. In the beginning each tries to accommodate to the other’s scenario and discrepancies are set aside. They are each accommodating and trying to get the other to accommodate at the same time - a complicated and exhausting enterprise. If it were not for the constant sexual and psychological reinforcement each gives the other, this struggle would cause the relationship to dissolve very early. They both want this to be their ideal so badly that they keep it going until it is a clear mistaken catastrophe. When it ends, they both blame the other for having misled and deceived them and can often be outraged at each other.

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GENDER PHOBIAS One harsh experience of rejection, in the beginning, by a romantic partner can lead to a generalized fear of romantic involvement.

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GENDER GRUDGES For this man, the woman is a conquest, a competition. He works hard to win her. When she reciprocates his charming attentions, he feels he has won and now is his property. He owns her. If another man shows her attention or tries to ‘steal’ her, his property is being stolen. He will attack. If she wants to leave him, it is all the same to him. His property that he had worked hard to win is being taken away from him. Who does he attack now? Her! If she succeeds in leaving him, he has lost his property and lost face because he lost the contest. His ego is wounded. He is enraged against her, feels humiliated and defeated, and is enraged against himself. He becomes depressed but holds a smoldering grudge. He will be angry and distrustful toward women in the future. But he is lonely and needy. He seeks out another woman. This time he feels he must be even more solicitous and charming and indulgent. He feels his old formula was not wrong, it was just insufficient. This time he is going to win in a way that will make sure she is his forever. The woman is bewildered because he seemed like such a prince, such a nice man

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THE USER AND ABUSER MARRY A MAN WHO BRINGS YOU ROSES After being hurt